Crew, Power, Stabilizers, Chambers

[kikaha]

Hello, hello !

What if crew was acting as chambers and stabilizers ?

I see a way to hopefully make a lot of people happy.

Both PvPers and RPers.

-We need one computer to manage so many power reactor blocks (100, 1000 or 10000 ?)
To make the reactor blocks fully efficient and stable we need so many crew per computer. say 10 crew for 10000 power block for exemple.
Multiple computers could be added to manage the power blocks. Maybe, i don't know if its doable code wise.

-We use the same system for chambers, a computer to manage the blocks and crew to manage the computer or the chambers will not fonction. The more crew the better the chamber effect.

I see the thing like that roughly, one crew member to manage 100 or 1000 blocks via a computer (that last one linked to the relevant blocks with those conduits.)

Like this the need for stabilizers (blocks) is not there anymore thus that distance also and we keep the need for crew quarters that Shine wants. (And me)

Hopefully we also reduce the numbers of blocks to place in a ship.

 

[jayman38]

I want to agree with this suggestion, but I foresee the playerbase demanding the ability to replace crew with AI blocks, putting us right back into the place of stabilizer and chamber system block clusters. It might have more variable block types in a given unit, but it would still be basically what we are working with at present.

 

[kikaha]

What are/will be crew ? AI that move about the entity (ship or station).

 

[GalactusX]

In order for this to happen ... first we need CREW ... then ... whatever God wants ...

as I said before, we first need the tools ... then the applications; currently we have MANY possible applications, weapons, shields, energy ... but no TOOLS to control them ... crew * cough * cough * cough

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Yes, I see many things could be solved with crew. The amount of code and lag could well be exponentially proportional to the implementation though.

Personally I would like to see more work on the AI, which should be transferable between NPC players and BobbyAI like computers.

Another idea I've presented before is to offload the AI for the game, so that all the Starmade server engine has to worry about is the universe and it's physics, operation, collisions, object status/location etc.

I thought having the AI enter or be pulled into the game kind of like a player, but with a different communication stream and server engine. I'm not sure about the ramifications of offloading in this way, but there should be ways to safeguard the server, players and AI in some way. AI offloading opens up a ton of possibilities for games in general. Sadly, I'm not sure anybody looked at my idea. Perhaps it's to complicated to encode.

 

[kikaha]

I think iremember having read your idea about AI Lone_Puppy.
I see AI for crew members anyway as just another block. I'm here/i'm not. Sending this signal to a selected few other blocks (computers?) thus triggering their special abilities/modes. The rest of the time it should go from A/workplace to B/restplace just for show.
That sort of NPC shouldn't take up too much processing power. (i admit i don't know nothing or close to how this work so i could talk rubbish here) When other duties (protecting a player or similar) are asked from the NPC another kind of AI could be summoned as needed.

But to come back to the subject at hand here some very simple crew members could deal with the power and make it work, effectively replacing the stabilizers. Or at least suppressing the need for them to be far away from power.

 

[Madman198237]

You can't offload AI if you want a singleplayer offline mode, Lone_Puppy

A more doable method might (I don't really understand what I'm talking about, general impressions only!) by to "offload" the AI to a separate thread or whatever, since it's going to have to run so many calculations with large empires spanning the galaxy.

 

[kikaha]

I wish more people would say what they think of this idea about NPC making reactors stables and chambers fonctionning.

 

[Zoolimar]

I wish more people would say what they think of this idea about NPC making reactors stables and chambers fonctionning.

Overall implementation of NPCs would be a good idea. But for now it seems like a pretty far away target that needs too many new systems(programming wise) to be implemented right now.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

The simplest route is what Kikaha suggests. Making NPC crew an asthetic instead of a function with minimal triggering impact would minimize the processing in game.

You can't offload AI if you want a singleplayer offline mode

Sorry, what I meant by off-loading is like the off-loading of video, audio or any processing that can be handle by another software process. So it would still work in single play just like the server is a separate process to the client running simultaneously when you play single player. The AI Off-load process would be a client based process that accesses the server the same way the client does with more and very different information communicated between them.
[doublepost=1508186847,1508186687][/doublepost]I guess I'm looking for a smarter AI that can actually play the game the way we do but from the inside. A bit of a pipe dream I guess.

 

[kikaha]

Those NPCs i'm talking about. Their role-for now- would be to be blocks basically. Them moving around could and maybe should be confined to between the chamber/reactors/computer controlling the chamber/reactors and their quarters. If/when trying to interract with them it would bring up the chamber menu or reactor menu and that's it.

its like a block but moving like on a rail between their work station and their quarters.

 

[jayman38]

...
Sorry, what I meant by off-loading is like the off-loading of video, audio or any processing that can be handle by another software process. So it would still work in single play just like the server is a separate process to the client running simultaneously when you play single player. The AI Off-load process would be a client based process that accesses the server the same way the client does with more and very different information communicated between them.
[doublepost=1508186847,1508186687][/doublepost]I guess I'm looking for a smarter AI that can actually play the game the way we do but from the inside. A bit of a pipe dream I guess.

The problem with offloading AI to the client is an issue of control. Once you relinquish "inside decisions", such as AI behavior to the client, cheaters can make the AI do whatever they want, and will typically put in the time and expertise to exceed the original game's wildest expectations. They can and will spend a surprising amount of time and effort just to win the game.

I've looked into ways to make client-side "decision-making" work without compromising the integrity of the game and came to the conclusion that with all the steps necessary to "secure" client-side game decisions, it's just more efficient to keep the processing on the server. In effect, the server would spend more processing to verify the legitimacy of decisions than just processing the decisions itself.

Block and intersection calculations, while exploitable, might be worth the risk of offloading to the client in special, tightly controlled ways. Especially if any given client could not be sure which client it was processing for. For example, player 1 might process calculations related to player 6's circumstances, while player 5 might be doing calculations for impact damage on player 2's ship. However, for this to be feasible, the game needs dozens of players on the server, to adequately share "random" calculations. With the low numbers we have now, it would be too easy for a cheater's modified code to guess if the calculations pertain directly to their own situation in the server and make "decisions" in their favor.

On the other hand, it might be interesting if server owners had the option to send AI decisions and/or other heavy processing to an alternate server, presumably still under the server owner's control. In other words, imagine the AI being controlled by an Amazon GameLift instance.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

The problem with offloading AI to the client is an issue of control

Agreed! My idea is for the control to remain with the physical server or a server in close proximity and not with the players client.
This would operate in the same way the server does now, but with a companion server process that handles the AI. The AI can then be treated like a blueprint, where servers owners/operators would maintain the control over them. Thus avoiding intersection and fiddling in general.

UPDATE:
The client reference is for single player. Server play would be at the control of servers
[doublepost=1508205041,1508204689][/doublepost]Hmm. I re-read my post and see the confusion I created. Sorry. When referring to client process, I meant accessing the world like a client, but this would still be a server process acting as a client purely for AI. It would open up the ability to have remotely accessing AI if you wished, and could be a fun thing for closed groups of players who would like to operate that way. The option would be there, but the primary setting would be secure from the server side only with the option to open up if you want to go crazy.